Keelham Farm Shop, Skipton: Yorkshire food hall, cafe and restaurant to close permanently

Keelham Farm Shop staff have been telling customers that the store on the A65 near Skipton will no longer trade after today (December 28) unless a buyer can be found, and that they have lost their jobs. All products have been removed from sale on the company’s online store.

A statement posted by a manager on the company’s social media accounts said: “Unfortunately due to financial situations the decision has been taken at least for the moment to close Keelham Food Hall, Keelham Kitchen, Kind at Keelham and Knead Pizzeria.

"There is hope that a new buyer will step up and continue the shop and re-employ a great deal of the staff but these things don't happen overnight unfortunately so please bear with us. I'm sure further details will be released as they become available.

"On a personal note as an employee of Keelham and a local. it is a shop and brand I would like to see continue and I'm sure many of you feel the same. It’s been with us for many years now and albeit changed management/ownership a couple of times, but it’s a place that offered produce and products not found in other shops in the area. I've enjoyed working there and working alongside the other staff members.”

The shop, cafe and restaurant was opened in 2015 by James and Victoria Robertshaw, siblings who also ran the original branch under the Keelham brand at their family farm in Thornton, near Bradford. It grew to become the country’s biggest farm shop, attracting half a million visitors per year.

The Robertshaws have since resigned as directors and the Skipton site was sold to a group of investors in 2020. The Thornton shop was rebranded as Robertshaw’s under James’s ownership and the two businesses are no longer connected.

Keelham is now under the control of investment fund Growth Partner LLP, whose managing partner Gerard Downes had initially mooted expanding the brand with more food halls. However, a new site did not open.

In recent weeks customers had complained of broken lifts and heating and of staff being unable to issue gift vouchers, claiming the system was down.

Skipton residents commenting on the closure said that since the takeover, prices had been high and were considered ‘unaffordable’ for many in the local area.

In 2022 James Robertshaw told The Yorkshire Post that he had ‘stripped back’ the original shop on the family farm after becoming concerned about the prices of some products. His business aims to attract a wide range of incomes.

Keelham’s other directors alongside Mr Downes are Alastair and Josephine Wellock, a Dales business couple, and James Worrall, who is also a director of two well-known outdoor clothing brands, Acai and Passenger.

The Wellocks’ family business began as a produce stall on Skipton Market and they later expanded to supply restaurants across the country.